“We're excited about Chip Ganassi Racing choosing Ford EcoBoost power going forward in sports cars,” said Raj Nair, Ford group vice president, global product development. “We believe they will be the perfect partner going forward to work with us to further develop the advantages of our EcoBoost engines.”

“We are very excited to be switching to Ford power for our sports-car program,” said team owner Chip Ganassi. “Over the last 10 seasons, we have been able to experience a great deal of success in Grand-Am and now with the dawn of the new United SportsCar Championship, we feel that Ford power will be a key ingredient to writing the next chapter of our sports-car program. I can't wait for the 24 hours at Daytona to get here.”

For Pruett, the announcement means he returns to Ford, where he started in 1985 with two races in the IMSA GTO series. Ford signed him to run full-time as a factory driver in 1986 and won four IMSA and SCCA Trans-Am championships before moving to Indy car racing. His two career Indy car wins also came with Ford power, and his one full season in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series came behind the wheel of a Ford Taurus.

“Coming back to Ford is the perfect way to bookend my career,” said Pruett. “To be honest, without Ford, there is no Scott Pruett. Ford gave me the chance to drive my first real race car -- the front-engine Mustang GTP in 1983 -- and then they were willing to take a chance on me when no one else did in 1985 and 1986.”

Michael Shank Racing was the first team to sign up to campaign the new EcoBoost engine, and MSR recently took the engine and the new-look Daytona Prototype car -- created with Ford corporate design influence -- to Daytona, where driver Colin Braun set a new closed-course speed record of 222.971 mph, as well as FIA records for standing start 10-mile and 10-kilometer runs.